As London struggles with a growing housing crisis, the Mayor is under renewed fire over his affordable homes programme. Boris Johnson pledged to build 100,000 new affordable homes by spring 2015. But City Hall data show that this year just 3,018 such homes were started between April and September. Mr Johnson’s targets have slipped before: he pledged in 2008 to build 50,000 affordable homes by 2011; then he promised 55,000 between 2011 and 2015. To date he has completed 66,000. Had he stuck to his original pledge, implying 16,660 homes a year, he would have built 133,330 by the next mayoral election.

The wider problem is that even these targets are not enough. A new report from estate agent Savills suggests that London needs a total of 50,000 new homes each year — almost double the 28,500 being built. There has also been mounting anger over the high proportion of new homes sold to overseas investors. The overall effect, as today’s Office for National Statistics figures show, is that London house prices were up 9.4 per cent year-on-year in September. There are worries that the inflation may be added to by the Government’s Help to Buy scheme, under which homebuyers buy properties of up to £600,000 with a five per cent deposit.

The Mayor is right to focus on the supply of housing rather than credit — but we need a much more ambitious programme. Without a much bigger supply of affordable housing — and even “affordable” by the Mayor’s criteria is beyond the means of most nurses or police officers — London risks grinding to a halt.

An EU opt-out that isn’t

Last week’s High Court judgment on the case of an asylum seeker who invoked both the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU (CFREU) highlights a bizarre legal situation. The claimant lost his case. But Mr Justice Mostyn points out in his judgment that this appeal had valid grounds — even though the UK opted out of the CFREU when signing the EU Lisbon Treaty in 2007. This is because the European Court of Justice (ECJ) reinterpreted the CFREU in 2011 to mean that the two states that opted out — the UK and Poland — in fact have to abide by it after all.

This is an example of the accretion of powers by the back door by the ECJ. Its full meaning is not yet clear, but it could lead to a rash of cases: the CFREU is much farther reaching than the ECHR, which is incorporated into UK law as the Human Rights Act 1998. The CFREU includes, for example, social and economic rights.

But the political aspect is potentially most explosive. Repeal of the Human Rights Act is a key demand of many Conservatives. Yet this judgment suggests that even if it were repealed — itself a distant prospect — that would make no difference, since all of the rights it covers and more are now guaranteed in the UK by the CFREU. The right to opt out, it seems, is illusory. And that can only fuel the anger of the Prime Minister’s Eurosceptic critics.

After the typhoon

As the UN launches a $301 million appeal for the Philippines, we can be proud of Britain’s response to the appalling devastation wrought by Typhoon Haiyan. At least 10,000 people are feared dead, amid scenes of unimaginable chaos. But Britain has been among the first to offer £10 million-worth of aid, and is sending a Navy destroyer to the scene. With international influence comes responsibility: Britain is performing the kind of humanitarian role it should after Haiyan.